Legislation to allow Housing New Zealand tenancies to be reviewed has passed its third and final reading under urgency in Parliament.
Reviewable tenancies, where tenants are regularly assessed to establish if they still have high housing needs, will be extended from about 10,000 tenants to an estimated 53,000.
Non-Government organisations providing social housing will also now receive the same rent subsidies as Housing New Zealand.
Housing Minister Nick Smith told Parliament it represents a fundamental shift from state housing to social housing.
He said a single government agency, the Ministry of Social Development, will assess people's housing needs. "That's different to what occurs right now where that person is pushed from pillar to post between Housing New Zealand and the Ministry of Social Development."
Labour Party housing spokesperson Phil Twyford said the law opened the door for older New Zealanders and other vulnerable tenants to be thrown out of their state homes.
Dr Smith says Ministers will be able to identify groups of people, such as vulnerable elderly or disabled tenants, who will not be subject to tenancy reviews.
The Social Housing Bill has been heavily criticised by opposition parties but was passed unanimously, after they failed to call for a party vote.
'Insecurity of tenure'
Earlier in the debate Mr Twyford said reviewable tenancies will extend the insecurity of tenure to all Housing New Zealand tenants.
Mr Twyford told Parliament on Tuesday the eviction of tenants from state houses in the Lower Hutt suburb of Pomare to make way for a $30 million development had a hugely negative health and social impacts on those people.
"They found that social ties are, in many cases, geographic: forcing people out of their homes threatens the emotional support provided by neighbours, it affects access to healthcare.
"Supportive stable communities help mitigate socio-econonic disadvantage by providing all kinds of resources that people get from being part of a stable community," Mr Tywford said on Tuesday.
Dr Smith said that if Pomare is Labour's flagship for state housing, then it's living in the past. "That is a community renowned for gang violence, renowned for murders, renowned for bad social and educational achievement, and what Labour wants to do is lock in that failed state housing model," Mr Smith said.
Labour MP Annette King told Parliament the houses in Pomare were left for five years neglected, run-down and empty under the current Government so the minister should get more up to date information.
She said Dr Smith's argument was pathetic, because gang members did not vanish in a puff of smoke but were simply rehoused elsewhere.
Dr Smith said the reviewable tenancies were to make sure that the homes were available for people who really needed them.
He told the House the Government believed social housing was for a specific period of need, while Labour thought the entitlement should be for life.
